Wyoming Class Battleship

Wyoming Class Battleship

The Wyoming class battleship was the fourth series of two battleships built for the United States Navy. The class comprised two ships: Wyoming and Arkansas. At the time of the design of this pair of dreadnoughts, not a single one of the previous designs had yet gone to sea. While somewhat larger than their predecessors they retained all the features that were common to American battleships to date, with centerline turrets, low freeboard, long service ranges, and very thick side armor. They were also the last U.S. capital ships armed with 12-inch (300 mm) guns; the Alaska class which would follow much later were classified as large cruisers, despite having 12" guns.

The two ships served during both World War I and World War II. In the First World War, both ships were assigned to the 6th Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet, and saw limited action in the North Sea from 1917 to 1918. Wyoming and Arkansas were both rebuilt in the mid-1920s, as was the case for all of the American battleships of the era. Wyoming was reduced to a training ship after 1931, while Arkansas saw convoy escort duty during World War II. She also conducted shore bombardment in support of the invasion of Normandy, as well as in Southern France during Operation Dragoon, both of which were conducted in mid-1944. She was then transferred to the Pacific theater, where she bombarded Iwo Jima and Okinawa during the amphibious invasions of those islands. Both ships were struck from the Navy after the end of the war; Wyoming was scrapped in 1947, while Arkansas was expended as a target during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in 1946.